A footrest is a device that is used in conjunction with a wheelchair to support the legs and feet of a patient while sitting in the wheelchair. The footrest is necessary for comfort, facilitating good body positioning, and for patients who have pain or swelling in the lower extremities.
Known footrests have a common problem mainly encountered in nursing homes, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, hospitals, and other such facilities. The problem occurs when one wheelchair is used for transporting the patient for bathing or other task. Then, the wheelchair is used for transporting the patient to another area. Typically, the footrests for the wheelchair are not transported with the wheelchair and subsequently become lost. Later, it becomes difficult to locate footrests for the wheelchair. As many workers in the health care field have encountered, there may be numerous footrests that fit only one side of the wheelchair and none that fit the other side causing the workers to waste time looking for matching footrests for the wheelchair.
This results in lost productivity, frustration by performing an unnecessary repetitive task, and decreased patient care. The lost productivity occurs when a worker spends less time assisting the patient with daily tasks such as bathing, dressing, or other activity. The time that is wasted looking for matching footrests may be for a patient that is going to a doctor's appointment, on an outing with family or other destination. In many cases, if a patient is in a situation where they are not leaving a facility, such as to an appointment, in the interest of time, a worker may not place footrests on the wheelchair. This may result in discomfort and pain in the lower extremities and increased swelling for the patient. Some nursing home residents cannot speak or have dementia and cannot advise the worker of any pain that they may be experiencing.
More importantly, injury can occur if the patient's foot gets caught under a wheel and, if the worker continues to push the wheelchair, the patient can fall out of the chair causing an even greater injury. Some patients are not able to stand on their own and may fall attempting toiletry activities. This may be prevented if the workers have more time to attend to patient care. In instances such as these, an amount of time spent looking for footrests can be better spent on patient tasks. The amount of time that is lost can be significant when aggregated for each worker.
Known footrests are not attachable to both sides of a wheelchair because a connection plate is located on a bottom of a tubular portion of an attachment mechanisms. Thus, if the footrest were to be reversed, the connection plate would be on top and would not be able to be attached on the opposite side of the wheelchair. These and other disadvantages of current footrests exist.